The Advantages to Accepting ACH Payments

When a business determines how it will accept payment, Automated Clearing House (ACH) is often a popular choice due to its low cost (compared with credit card payments), the ease at which a business can get approved for it, and the overall security this type of payment offers for both the business and the client.  Expanding the ways that customers can pay for products or services provides the business with greater revenue, making the convenience of ACH payments highly attractive for businesses, as well as their customers. 

 

Since most ACH payments are processed for a flat fee (usually between 25 to 75 cents, per transaction), they end up costing the business far less than many credit card payments.  This is because in order to process credit cards, the business is generally charged a percentage of the total amount of sale as a credit card processing fee. 

Also, although customers might initially feel hesitant to give out their bank account and routing number to a business, the fact is that their information is more secure with ACH payment than with giving a paper check to someone.  With a paper check, your bank account and routing numbers are printed in plain sight at the bottom of the document.  This means that there is always the possibility that the information can be stolen by unscrupulous employees or simply due to the loss of the actual check document in the process of transferring it from bank account owner, to merchant, to the merchant’s bank. 

ACH payments, on the other hand, are handled through a secure, encrypted network, and record of the transaction is kept to make it traceable.  If a business chooses to accept ACH payments, the checking account numbers are entered into a secure system and then encrypted during the ACH processing.  Since the ACH payments are handled by computers, the risk of someone using your bank account information fraudulently is actually lowered.